Battersea Park

What a great day.  I started off by walking down to Marble Arch and getting on bus #137.  Since there were so few people, I was able to get one of the front seats on the double decker part and had a great view the whole ride to Battersea Park.  The route took us around Hyde Park, onto Knightsbridge and then south on Sloane Street and then over the river on Chelsea Bridge.  But Sloane Street -- oh my!  I got a great view of the super high end designer shops: Armani, Jimmy Choo, Gucci, Prada, Christian Dior and others.  The Chelsea Bridge is fun because there are ship decorations on pillars by the bridge.  They were so fun that I might have to go down there with my better camera to document.

The morning started off with some speeches by the Mayor, the organizers from Thrive (the charity with whom we were partnering), and our Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM).  We then walked en masse, to the American Section of the park where the Mayor and DCM were going to plant a tree.  (You can the official story here.)  Right now they have a piece of steel from one of the towers of the World Trade Center that has been made into a sculpture.  I don't think any of us knew about the sculpture.  All of us were taken aback by how emotional we got when gazing at it.

The day had three goals -- to help clear the American Section of the park so that the pathways were usable again, heed the call of service that our President has challenged us with, and to work with the charity Thrive that uses gardening as a way to integrate physically and mentally challenged people into the community.  I think we were successful in all three areas.  It was great to be outside and doing physical work.  We were commenting to each other that this week in the Consular Section had been particularly challenging and it was just nice to be together in a less stressful environment.  I had thought that we would be working at the site of the future Embassy, but I was wrong.  The new Embassy is going to be built just to the east of the park.

My task for the day was working on the brush clearing crew.  I had a super duper pair of sharp "loppers" that could cut through small holly trees like nobodies business.  At one point the DCM came into our section and her pair wasn't nearly as nice as mine.  I traded with her for a bit so that she could have the satisfaction of cutting down something bigger than a tangled mass of ivy.  After she had success, she went on to another group of workers.  Our Consul General was also there, but he worked in another area.

At the end of the day, a group headed to a pub on the west side of the park, to the Prince Albert Pub (I'm not sure why the cows were on the roof).  We walked passed the Peace Pagoda and the more formal English Gardens as well as a cute cottage.  It is a beautiful park.  At the pub I ordered a ginger ale.  It came in a bottle smaller than your average cough syrup.  Puny in comparison to the glasses of beer that others ordered.  I stayed about an hour or so and then left with a woman that I worked with in NIV.  We walked back across the north side of the part to the east end to get on the same bus that we took in the morning.  Conversation with her is very easy and it made for a very pleasant commute to Marble Arch, where we parted ways.

I am so happy that I went to the Park and took part in this day.  I'm thinking that I will stay in the city for the weekend.  The chance of rain is only 20% here tomorrow and 70% in Bath.  There is still lots to do here that I shouldn't get bored.